


Nintendo Panic

by sleeby



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Brian Has Anxiety, M/M, Panic Attacks, could be read as ship or platonic, get it its instead of nintendo power haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeby/pseuds/sleeby
Summary: It's Brian's first E3! Patrick's excited to show Brian around and get his reactions on stream, but Brian is a bit overwhelmed.





	Nintendo Panic

**Author's Note:**

> Watching Brian in the E3 stream gave me so much secondhand anxiety,,

Despite how many streams he’s done, Brian would be lying his tits off if he said he wasn’t nervous about the E3 stream.

He already wasn’t a big fan of crowds, and now he was going to be navigating his first E3 while trying to be entertaining. Running on two sips of coffee and no sleep didn’t help much either. Pat tapped his shoulder, making Brian jump.  
“You okay, bud?”  
    Brian did his best to let his eyes focus on Pat as his brain took a pause to process the question. After a moment he forced a smile on his face. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine, just...tired.” Pat squinted at him for a moment. “You’re gonna do fine, Brian.”  
Brian nervously exhaled and did his best to stop his hands shaking. “I know!”  
      They started the stream just outside the actual convention. So far, Brian could handle this! He’s nervous as hell, sure, but he’s also excited. Pat taking a bite out of the cardboard anime advertisement also helped calm his nerves significantly. Pat could probably tell how stressed he was, which is embarrassing, but he was fine! Although he insisted on filming his every reaction going into the convention center, which, while sweet, also made his skin prickle with a perceived lack of oxygen. The further they walked on the floor the more Brian could feel his heart in his ears.  
      When they got to the back of the Nintendo booth, Brian needed a moment to collect himself. He could feel the anxiety catching up with him. “Pat! Pat, could you do me a favor and pan over and focus on your face or, or these faces for a little bit because I’m-I’m being so over, uh, so overwhelmed with emotions that uh,” Brian trailed off, his breathing getting faster. “I’m, I’m just I think that um. I’m- I’m,” Pat glanced over at Brian and moved quickly to pan over to the large portrait of Donkey Kong as the audio shorted out of the stream once again. Brian was ghostly pale, his eyes were wide and his hands were shaking. Pat carefully set down the equipment and switched off the mics, they could always play it off as technical difficulties. He gently tugged Brian’s sleeve to guide him towards the Nintendo wall and motioned for him to sit down. Brian’s legs were shaking and his eyes were unfocused and glazed with tears. When he sat on the convention carpet he immediately brought his knees up to his chest, slightly rocking back and forth. Pat tried his best to keep his own panic out of his voice from seeing his friend like this. He’d seen panic attacks before but it was always alarming to see it happening.  
    “Brian? Bri, can you hear me, buddy?”  
      After a moment, Pat got a small nod amidst the shaking. Brian was trying his best to smile and play it off, despite the circumstances. “I-I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry I.” Once Brian realized he wasn’t able to stop the repeating he clamped his mouth shut and held his breath. God, he felt so fucking stupid. Why couldn’t he just shut up, he was making Pat worry and the stream was probably mad and- “Brian! Brian, Brian you’re hurting yourself!” Pat tugged at Brian’s hands which had a white-knuckle grip on his hair. At Pat’s insistence, he let his hands go limp and be pulled away and tried to stop his teeth from grinding together. He was still gasping for breath. “Brian, can you do me a favor and breathe with me, please?” Brian nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna put your hand on my chest and you follow my breathing pattern, okay?” Brian nodded again.  
    Pat did a few exaggerated deep breaths until Brian’s breathing was reasonably under control; his face was red, and he was shaky, but he was mostly back to normal. “You sit here and drink some water, keep breathing. I’m gonna set the stream back up and cover for us.”  
      Brian's voice was rough as he sipped the water. “H-how long has it been?”  
    “About three or four minutes?” Brian almost slipped into panic again and let his head fall back against the wall. “I’m not really sure if I expected that to be longer or shorter.” Pat looked down at Brian, who was still not exactly in the greatest of states to be live streaming. He sighed and turned off the stream, sending out a quick tweet about audio quality and that they will restart the stream soon.  
      “Hey, Brian.” at the sound of his name his heart rate skyrocketed again. “It’s okay pal, we’re gonna pick the stream up later.” As awful as Brian felt about messing up the stream, he knows that he and Pat would have felt more awful continuing after that whole emotional mess, so he blinked away his new tears and just nodded. “Do you think you can walk out of here with me or should I carry you?” It was framed as a joke but Brian knew that if he asked Pat would probably carry him bridal style all the way out of the building. His face twitched into a smile at the thought, his voice still quiet. “I should be able to manage, Pat.” On stumbly gangly legs, they made their way out again, and Brian only almost burst into tears one more time, when he made eye contact with the security guard. Both Pat and Brian considered this a win.  
      When they were settled outside the convention away from any crowds, Brian took a moment to lean into Pat’s side. “Thank you for helping me.” Pat smiled and looked down at Brian who was staring intently at the crushed up empty water bottle he’d been fiddling with, “What else was I gonna do? Leave you there?” Brian shrugged and Pat could see the blush that had crept to his neck. “Still. It was nice of you.” Pat laid his head over Brian’s and ignored his racing heart at Brian’s sincerity. He put on a jokey smile and patted Brian's knee. “Anything for you, dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first serious fic i've posted so please give me feedback if ya have the chance :'')


End file.
